Superior Forms
by NullNoMore
Summary: Citizens of NLA discuss the recent string of shirtless recruitment posters for BLADE being posted on the jumbotron gracing BLADE tower. Inspired by the genius work of Rosyan on DeviantArt, "Join BLADE", plus the Superior Form. No spoilers, slight swears. All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, except that poster, oh that poster, and Lila & her station.


**Superior Forms**

 **A/n: Citizens of NLA discuss the recent string of shirtless recruitment posters for BLADE being posted on the jumbotron gracing BLADE tower. Inspired by the genius work of Rosyan on DeviantArt, "Join BLADE", plus the Superior Form.**

 **Not much in the way of spoilers. Slight swears (because Vandham), drooling (because Mara and Lila). If you search up Rosyan on DeviantArt, do be aware that some of the stuff is (gloriously) NSFW (and how) but "Join BLADE" is fairly tame.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, wait, no, Vandham's recruiting poster is 100% due to the talents of Rosyan, I cannot say enough good things about it. Lila the NPC and her station are mine, please someone give her a cold compress.**

* * *

Lara Mara strolled into the Auxiliary Skell Refueling Station, smiling broadly. He ducked his head around this skell and that, until he found his target, crouched and muttering over a kinked fuel line. "Lila, dear, just the person I was hoping to see."

The station manager glanced briefly up at him, flipping her braid back with irritation, then went back to tugging at the line. "Mara, I don't have time to chat. Wednesday's overnighter wasn't the smoothest I've ever run, and I gotta get myself to the commercial sector somehow in under 20 minutes. I'm going to have to run flat out."

Lara Mara shook his head in mild dismay. Lila's inability to function under the open sky was quite the handicap whenever she needed to leave the hangar under the Administrative District. "If you would just let somebody help. I'd be glad to, any time." Bonus: he wasn't above eavesdropping on Lila's weekly fuel usage report to Commander Vandham. He'd love to see if their conversations were as strictly professional as Lila claimed they were.

Her reply was sharp. "I will get there on my own, or I won't get there at all. Call me stubborn but…"

"Stubborn butt? Lila! Such language! I'm going to tell."

"That's not what I said!" She gave the now obedient line one more shake and stood up to talk. "Whatcha need?"

"MMmm, many things. Have you seen the tower today?"

"No. Don't tell me the, uh, the recruitment poster went up again?" Her voice had wandered up into squeaky territory. Six days earlier, the giant display screen on BLADE tower had featured the image of Commander Vandham, bare chested and flexing one massive arm, emblazoned with the words "Join BLADE." It had replaced the blinking percentages and weather reports for a full 30 minutes before someone managed to remove it. "Remove" is inaccurate. The display had suddenly gone black, due to a building-wide power cut. The regular feed hadn't been restored until after lunch.

Lara Mara chuckled. "No, no. I believe they decided that was too distracting for certain sectors of the city."

"So what now?"

Lara's smile grew huge. "My lucky day. I get to enlighten you." He whipped out his comm device and popped it open before her. Lila waited for him to start swiping to whatever he wanted to show her, then looked quizzical when he made no move to do so. "Admire my lock screen, dear. Straight from the tower."

"Pfffffttttahhhhhffffffttttt!" She'd backed away suddenly, covering her mouth with both hands to keep from spitting more incoherence. The lock screen in question was another shirtless subject, this time a young and familiar Pathfinder with glinting green eyes and a come-hither look. His arms were stretched over his head and his body was arched, all the better to display his glorious musculature.

"Like it? That pose is truly superior."

"Lara! Where did you get that?!"

"It's up on the jumbotron even as we speak." Lara gave the screen another admiring and lingering glance. "I'm going to enjoy swiping this regularly. Want a copy? I'll send you one. I'll send you twenty."

"Hector has finally lost his tiny little mind."

"His mind is not what I care about this morning."

"What a conceited noodle."

"Sultry would be my word for it. Check out his face."

"His face. Right." She peeked over the device again, and then laughed. "Smug little flyboy."

"Well, my work here is done. Just ping me if you want a copy. You never did thank me for the last thing I sent you." That thing being the Commander's recruitment poster.

Lila frowned. "That wasn't kind. He had nothing to do with putting that picture up."

"But we're all assuming H.B. had everything with sharing this bit of sunshine?"

"Hmmm." She looked serious. "Maybe Hector is innocent." The two friends stared at each other for a split second before starting to laugh. "Oh that poor deluded boy. What _was_ he thinking?"

xcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcx

It was exactly 20 minutes later that Lila reached Barista Alley, making not so much a beeline for the Commander's table as a scuttling run, hugging the walls and planters whenever she could, pelting blindly when she didn't. He looked ridiculous, looming over the flimsy café table with a dinky cup and saucer set in front of him. A more generous mug of tea was already waiting before the empty chair opposite him. She slid onto the uncomfortable wooden chair and passed him her comm device.

"You really should just ping it to me," he rumbled distractedly as he examined the most recent fuel usage numbers.

"And miss my chance to have someone buy me tea, sir?"

"The day they ask me to pay my tab, I will be very surprised."

"You, sir, are not a good example."

"Hmmmmpf," he grunted, indicating how little he thought of his need to be an example of anything. After a moment, he started peppering her with questions about usage by specific divisions, their destinations as well as she could recall, and any unusual gravity damage. She did her best to answer each point. This was the real reason she never just pinged him. The numbers told only so much, and she could fill in things faster face to face. The coffee meetings were not a waste of time, anyone would have to agree. Plus, those questions hinted at what she needed to look for in the coming week.

After he'd shoved the comm device back at her, she waited until he'd taken a sip of his coffee before bringing up her final topic. "So. Anything new on your end, sir?"

He set the cup down quickly and glared at her. "Don't pretend you didn't see it. Either of them."

She shook her head. "I didn't. Agoraphobia and all. I don't look up much."

"And no one sent you a picture."

"No **one**."

He leaned back, crossing his arms, and glared at her. "Jesus, how many people sent you something?"

She couldn't keep up the innocent face. "Both Laras and Gino and Alexa and …" she said, counting on her fingers. She grinned at him.

"Well, enjoy it while it lasts, I've got both Meredith and Sakuraba scrubbing every data link on this planet. They will all be gone by the end of the week. All of them."

"Mmm hmm. What about hard copies?"

"What?" He looked surprised.

"Maybe somebody printed one out."

"You got a pin-up calendar in your office? No, don't tell me. I'll get them to track those too, and then I'll feed them to the owners."

Lila rolled her eyes. "Why so touchy? I mean, it's not like you didn't …" She suddenly went bright red and had to clear her throat a couple times.

"Remembering the day I dropped trou during the briefing?"

"Yes, sir, a little." She had been standing right next to the Commander when he'd suddenly stripped and challenged the other section heads to an impromptu race to the bridge. A race that had involved long stretches of corridor and several decks, not to mention a few very awkward elevator rides. He'd lost to the research division's fleet footed leader. Lila had been left to pick up the laundry and return it to the contestants at the finish line. People had sometimes done very silly things to relieve the boredom and tension on the White Whale. "I'm sure there was some footage of that day's events. More than a little."

"Not for long. This isn't my first time cleaning up after my mistakes."

"I do remember those videos disappearing at alarming speed."

"You were keeping track?"

"No."

"Right."

"Whatever inspired you to do it, sir?" she asked suddenly. When he didn't answer, she continued more slowly. "Your picture, I mean. It looked like it was supposed to be a poster or something."

Vandham ducked his head down and twirled his empty coffee cup. It clinked cheerfully against the saucer. "… _nagithoughtitwasagoodidea_..." he mumbled.

"Sorry. I'm afraid I didn't quite catch that."

"Dammit, the Captain wanted to encourage more civilians to shift to BLADE. It was taken months ago! Back when we could barely fill the divisions." His face dared her to comment.

She blinked at him. After a pause, she continued. "So you took off your shirt."

Vandham was looking down at his coffee cup again. "Alcohol may have been involved."

"Uh huh."

"It was the day we'd found that cache of life pods."

Lila's smile was genuine and bright. "Oh, yeah, I remember. 30 plus people rescued in one day."

He smiled back at her. "That one. Spirits were kind of high."

"It was a good day, sir."

"It was a goddamn miracle and public holiday wrapped in one. The kids in BLADE tower got a little giddy."

"I can imagine."

"We'd been sweating about our numbers, and someone suggested promotional posters."

"Promotional."

"Eye candy for the various divisions. Beefcake, cheesecake, the works."

Her smile faded slightly. "I can't say I approve, sir."

"Well, no one did, after we were all sober. But at the time I thought I was being that good example you mentioned."

"Just like you did on the Whale. Very inspirational. Did the Captain, er, Secretary of Defense also step into the spotlight?"

"That man doesn't need to lift more than an eyebrow to inspire all of BLADE and you damn well know it. Anyway, he seemed to be the one taking most of the pictures, somehow."

"Fancy that."

"Still, I'm hoping H.B.'s little hissy fit will distract the city from my sanitation operations. In fact, I'm thinking how it might start propagating itself."

"No. Spare me. Do not send that to my device."

"Too much for you?"

"I need more of Hector like I need mephite road kill on skell treads. Aging mephite roadkill." She shuddered, remembering the last time the station had to clean a particularly pungent skell after the pilot had driven right through a pack of the skunk-like indigen.

"Remind me not to ask you about that story."

"I'll save it for absolutely emergencies, sir."

"Whelp, gotta shove off. Same time next Thursday."

"Yes, sir."

"The walk isn't too bad for you?"

"I have my ways, sir. It's a good challenge."

"I'm headed back that way. Need an escort?"

"No, thank you, sir. I have an errand here. See you next Thursday."

"If I don't see you first."

Lila waved cheerfully and respectfully as he left. All the while thinking, " _Or if I check my other,_ _ **other**_ _comm device first, because Sakuraba, Meredith, and the whole of the ECP is never going to find out about the screen saver on that third one in my desk drawer._ "

* * *

 **a/n: Once again, big thank you to Rosyan for filling my brain with just about the best images of the Men of NLA. If I had a smart phone, I would have a number of very nice screen savers. Instead I have a burner phone and happy memories. Go to deviantArt and check that stuff out, but, again, a few are very clearly NSFW, so depending on mileage you may want those filters up and ready!**

 **Probably set after Chapter 5 of The Lily and the BLADE (maybe slightly before Ch. 4 of the game proper). The other stuff is in Streaker Tag. Send help.**

 **I swear, by all Splatfests and Yggralith Zero, that I will get back to Wolf & Duna. When it gets cooler. Meanwhile...**

 **W** **hich would your Cross choose?  
Flight or invisibility?**


End file.
